In defence of the ethnonym гуран ’Guran’

In Aleksandr Anikin’s "Russian Etymological Dictionary" there is a dictionary entry гуран ’guran’, which categorically rejects the etymology of the word, set forth by Lubov Kryuchkova in the monograph "Dictionary Materials by G. S. Novikov-Daursky as a Source for Russian Historical Lexicography". We argue that initially the word гуран ’guran’ appeared as an ethnonym. The history of the word was associated with Beijing, or Albazin, Cossacks, who served in the colour company in Beijing. After the reform of the Chinese army, some of these Cossacks returned to Transbaikalia. They brought the word гурун ’gurun’, which in the Goldic (Nanai) and Manchu languages was used to mean ‘people’. The Cossacks could hear this word from them and then made it a self-name. The word гуран ’guran ’ is the result of a mixture of the Goldic and Manchu гурун ’gurun ’ with an unclearly pronounced sound [u], which began to sound like ’guran’ under the influence of a more well-known word among the Russians, denoting ‘a wild goat, male roe deer’